October 10th, 2016 | It’s a me, Mario.

Alexander playing in his playhouse.Needed a way to keep a sick child from going haywire during grocery shopping. Solution tab pram.Alexander tries spaghetti bolognese for himself.At the laundromat again.

Monday. Scattered showers. 24°c.

Kaohsiung.Taiwan.

7:15 a.m. I should just automatically start each chronicle entry with the words: Rain, rain, rain. Because for it almost seems that it’s been raining every morning. Today is no exception. Mind you I love the rain. Mostly because I think it reminds me of when I was young. I grew up in a tiny and rather isolated town at the base of the largest mountain ranges in northern Queensland, Australia. Covered with tropical rain forrest and surrounded by sugar cane and tea plantations. It rained alot in that region and received quite a few cyclones that regularly removed the roofs off houses and wrapped trees around telephone poles. Yes, I said telephone poles, before they started putting telephone and electrical cables under the ground.

09:45 a.m. Well, well, well would you look at that. The sun has decided to come out and play. Today is a public holiday. Another one.There are too many of them. Maybe good for the public servants, who get paid regardless, but not necessarily good for the public who work on an hourly wage.

10:00 a.m. Alexander spent some time playing in his plastic Playhouse. He loves to sit in there sometimes and just play with flashcards or even examine toy cars. It’s funny how we all have this cozy little corner we love. Although it might appear in different forms it’s still a ‘cozy corner’.

11:30 a.m. Alexander has just had a midday milk feed and has fallen to sleep next to Chia. Both still have a cough and cold. It will take a few days for them to recover. I guess bed and sleep is the best remedy to allow the human body to repair itself without exerting unnecessary extra problems on it to deal with.

Right now for me I’m sitting in the living room on the curved wooden chairs drinking a cup of coffee. A cappuccino actually. I have a floor fan blowing on me as the air is too still outside and no fresh breeze is flowing through the house. That is when it can get a little muggy inside. The three cats are asleep in a cardboard box in the corner. And the two budgerigards are talking away outside on the veranda. Having a merry conversation I guess.

2:15 p.m. Needed to do some grocery shopping. We had to figure out a way of taking Alexander with us, who is grumpy because of his cold. And grocery shopping is very boring. Grumpy child + Grocery shopping = chaos. Solution: attach his tablet to the pram! Worked like a charm.

3:30 p.m. Chia is making Italian style congee for Alexander’s daily meals this week. And using similar ingredients I will make spaghetti bolognaise tonight for dinner. I’m using an old Italian recipe I learnt at home economics in High School. I know it’s an original recipe because the teacher was Italian and it tastes great. But unfortunately I cannot remember her name to thank her. I have a strange feeling her last name was Vella. So thank you Miss or Mrs Vella. Actually the town that I was living in had a lot of Italians. They were mostly sugarcane farmers. I also had a part-time job during those years working as an assistant baker in an Italian bakery. It was called Wangan Bakery. I remember the owner was called Herman. Herman was a big round fellow who looked a bit like Mario from the Nintendo Mario Brothers game.

6:00 p.m. Alex enjoyed his first spaghetti bolognese. We let him try it by himself after a while. And of course it was spaghetti play time, everywhere!

8:00 p.m. Alexander went to sleep within minutes after drinking his night milk. He was busy today and probably played himself out.

8:30 p.m. Need to do the laundry. Back to work tomorrow. So need fresh clothes to wear! In the laundry there is a while to wait. 30 mjnutes to wash. 30 minutes to dry. So I use this time to catch up on the news around the world. Politics, Entertainment and Science. The presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton fought it out today on their second televised debates. Both dragged each other through the mud. It seemed a pretty even match / fight. It’s going to be a cliff hanger election I guess.

Why would I care about what happens in the United States? Because of three letters. T.R.A. the Taiwan Relations Act. The next president of the united states needs to be pro-Taiwan so we can keep China at bay until we are in a position to defend ourselves well.

NOTE on the T.R.A:

The Taiwan Relations Act potentially requires the U.S. to intervene militarily if the PRC (China) attacks or invades Taiwan. The act states that “the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capabilities”. However, the decision about the nature and quantity of defense services that America will provide to Taiwan is to be determined by the President and Congress.

The act further stipulates that the United States will “consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of theWestern Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States”.

This act also requires the United States “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character”, and “to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.” Successive U.S. administrations have sold arms to Taiwan in compliance with the Taiwan Relations Act despite demands from the PRC not to do so.